OOTP XX

[Mick]

 

 

[Lowerdeck]

2044 season: I came in 2nd in the NL West (again), but finished 99-63 this time.  Then got swept in the wild card round to the Dodgers.  Despite finishing 3rd in the NL West, the Dodgers ended up winning the World Series - after beating me, the Giants, the Braves, and then the Guardians.

Jose Garcia, my superstar LF, won MVP again - second time in a row, third overall.  Had 9.1 WAR.  Opted out of his contract, but I resigned him for $288m / 8 years (36m per).  In the last offseason I traded for a SP from the Rays, Kevin Francis.  I expected him to be a 3rd or 4th starter - he ended up winning the Cy Young and was 2nd in the MVP vote.  I had three SP's in the top 8 leaguewide in WAR.  My RF won a silver slugger.  My 1B got a gold glove.  I traded for a SS from Toronto for two meh prospects - and he got 3.5 WAR out of nowhere.

My budget went up nearly $30m.  I already had the highest payroll to budget percentage in the league for years, so this will be fun.

[Mick]

The game world (circa 1970) I just set up:

 

 

 

 

Essentially, I disabled importing historical rookies to disable certain advantages I may have. The plan is to simulate from 1970 to probably 1990 to weed out any historic players, and take the most shit team I can and build the greatest dynasty in baseball history. 

[RazorsEdge]

I'm by no means the greatest at this game but I'm giving it a shot. In season 3 of a Nationals rebuild. First year we went 61-101, second year we improved to 81-81. I've pretty much got my roster setup but I'm afraid I'm probably not going to be able to keep Juan Soto unless I move some other valuable players out. I'm not sure what to do. Here's my team:-

C Keibert Ruiz
1B Vinnie Pasquantino
2B Luis Garcia (v. RHP)/Oswaldo Cabrera (v. LHP)
3B Isiah Kiner-Falefa
SS Adalberto Mondesi
LF Yordan Alvarez
CF Akil Baddoo
RF Juan Soto
DH Oswald Peraza

C Riley Adams
IF Maikel Franco
OF Harold Castro

-

SP RHP Sandy Alcantara
SP RHP Kyle Wright
SP LHP Framber Valdez
SP RHP Dylan Cease
SP LHP Ranger Suarez

CL LHP Josh Hader

Setup RHP Jonathan Loaisiga
Setup LHP Aroldis Chapman

Middle Relief RHP Keone Kela
Middle Relief RHP Miguel Castro
Middle Relief RHP Seranthony Dominguez
Middle Relief RHP Huascar Ynoa

Long Relief/Emergency Starter LHP Nestor Cortes

I managed to ship both Patrick Corbin (his money comes off the books next year) and Stephen Strasbourg (he came back from injury, had 1 rehab appearance before injuring himself for 12 months and just looks poor now) out while retaining some of their wages. So I'm not really sure what to do. I have $13.7M left for extensions. Everyone is extended except for Chapman, Franco and Soto. Soto wants a deal worth $42.5M a year. I could probably argue him down some. But I'd still need to shed wages elsewhere. Next season Hader earns $17.2M, Mondesi earns $15M, Alvarez earns $18.2M and Alcantara earns $17M. Everyone else is under $10M. So I have some pieces I can move so I can keep Soto but I'm not sure it's worth it.

[Meacon Keaton]

Where do you think you're weakest in regard to being able to compete this season? Your rotation looks great, but how confident are you with your line-up? What is Baddoo's outfield range?

My advice would be to see where you're sitting at the end of June or beginning of July and figure out if 1) you have a shot at making the playoffs and 2) have a team that can actually do well if you make the playoffs. If the answer is no to either, start figuring out the best prospect package you can get for him. He's awesome but I can never bring myself to pay $40 million a year for anyone.

[RazorsEdge]

29 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

Where do you think you're weakest in regard to being able to compete this season? Your rotation looks great, but how confident are you with your line-up? What is Baddoo's outfield range?

My advice would be to see where you're sitting at the end of June or beginning of July and figure out if 1) you have a shot at making the playoffs and 2) have a team that can actually do well if you make the playoffs. If the answer is no to either, start figuring out the best prospect package you can get for him. He's awesome but I can never bring myself to pay $40 million a year for anyone.

Baddoo's outfield range is 65 so he's borderline being suitable for center, probably should be a corner outfielder, really. The weakest part of my lineup is my infield and maybe DH. Pasquantino at 1B was good last year hitting .260, at 2B Garcia and Cabrera hit .253 and .272 respectively, 3B Kiner-Falefa hit .246 and Mondesi hit .239 at shortstop (he was hitting around .300 when I signed him to his current contract). At DH was mostly Peraza and he hit .272 so he didn't actually do too bad. I don't think I'd be upset if I could flip Soto and Mondesi for a new SS and maybe 3B as long as they have good potential. And yeah I'm pretty stoked with my pitchers. I've put a rule in place to not pick up anyone over 30. Chapman was the only exception to that rule and that was because I was offered him in a fairly decent trade and didn't have a strong left armer in my bullpen outside of my closer Hader.

Pre-season predictions have us finishing top of our division but I don't put too much faith in them. Still, I think we could make a decent run at the playoffs.

I think I'm gonna ship Mondesi and Soto out regardless of where we are at the trade deadline. I really don't want to give Soto up for nothing at the end of the year. Although I'll probably change my mind a hundred times before the deadline.

[Mick]

I'd say it's time to dump Soto. That $42 million a year is going to cripple you. How many players can that money get you, that will collectively produce more than Soto? 

Here's what you do. Take his salary, and start dividing it by every tracked, non-formula stat. Example: Roy Hobbs is making $10,000,000 a year. He hits 40 home runs and has 100 RBIs. 10 million/40 = $250K a home run. 10 million/100 = $100K an RBI. On the other hand, Clu Heywood makes $20 million a year, hits 45 home runs and has 120 RBI's. Each home run costs $444,444 and each RBI is $166,666. You have RF and 1B pretty much locked up, so for the sake of argument you're trying to decide on DH. So, you'd go with Hobbs since you're getting cheaper runs out of him opposed to Heywood. That leaves you with ten million dollars you can put elsewhere. 

For $40,000,000, the guy better be putting up better numbers than Bonds or Ruth ever did. 

[Pogue Mahone]

Is this an easy game to pick up for Baseball beginners?

I love sport management games and this always gets recommended.

I love baseball too but I’m not familiar with players or tactics or anything like that.

[Meacon Keaton]

I'm not sure if easy is the word I would use. There is a lot of statistics and ratings to consider, but someone like @Forkycould probably better answer this. He watches baseball but isn't super, super into it. 

I'm not sure how familiar you are with all the statistics, or how the financials/contracts in baseball work, but I like discussing this stuff so you can always PM me if you have particular questions. 

[Mick]

I've found it to be pretty easy to learn, but keep in mind I really don't do game management as I do play as the team's general manager. 

 

The game world you set up is very customizable. When I was more or less learning the game, I had it set to only MLB with no minor league teams. As I understood more, I gradually increased the complexity of my game world to the image above from a few days ago. 

[Draevyn]

4 hours ago, Pogue Mahone said:

Is this an easy game to pick up for Baseball beginners?

I love sport management games and this always gets recommended.

I love baseball too but I’m not familiar with players or tactics or anything like that.

The game itself is easy to get into but if you're anything like me, you're going to get dragged into trying to understand the different stats and such. I actually leaned on Meac a lot when I started playing it. I think it's pretty easy to do okay but if you really want to put together a really good team then you'll end up looking up different things. It's very very detailed when it comes to contracts and stats and such.

Also it's very easy to get lost in it. So many times I turned it on with the intention to just play an hour or so and suddenly 4 hours have passed.

[RazorsEdge]

7 hours ago, Pogue Mahone said:

Is this an easy game to pick up for Baseball beginners?

I love sport management games and this always gets recommended.

I love baseball too but I’m not familiar with players or tactics or anything like that.

I don't know much about baseball stats outside of the basics and I find it very enjoyable. I don't think you really need to know who the players are to enjoy the game.

[Mick]

Really, the names of actual players is a hindrance IMO. I find it too tempting to draft guys I know will be (or in some cases should be, BTW fuck you Baseball Writers of America for being pissy over guys like Bonds, Clemens and McGwire 'ruin' your squeaky clean baseball card on bicycle spoke Big League Chew vision of the game but I digress) in the Hall of Fame. I'll grab Bonds, Walker or Randy Johnson in a heart beat. Too easy.

Finding diamonds in the rough or polishing turds into cubic zirconia I'd much more rewarding. 

[RazorsEdge]

So I traded Soto (who was averaging .306) just before the trade deadline for a 75 potential closer and a 50 current ability/75 potential ability 3B. I probably could've got more prospects from other teams but they wouldn't of been anywhere close to the same quality. There weren't really a lot of teams that expressed serious interest. To replace him I sent my top prospect SS (watch me regret this in a few years) to get RF Julio Rodriguez who is 75/80 and batting .272. I was so tempted to keep Soto because I'm first in my division and look to be making a run at the playoffs but I just couldn't lose him for nothing at the end of the season.

EDIT: Well the team reacted by smashing the Mets 21-0 with Kyle Wright posting 9 shutout innings.

[RazorsEdge]

I ended up also trading Dylan Cease and a couple of prospects to Houston for Cristian Javier and a couple prospects. Javier has posted a higher ERA than Cease so that kinda sucks but he's much cheaper. I also traded a couple prospects to get left-handed reliever Aaron Ashby from the Brewers, and also a prospect and Miguel Castro (who's ERA was sky high) to the Braves getting right-handed reliever Indigo Diaz back.

So Soto leaving didn't really bother the team at all. We ended up going 104-58 which made us the best team in baseball. Keibert Ruiz was the NL batting champ with an average of .316 with 22 homers. I don't know that I've ever had that kind of offensive output out of a catcher before in this game. Maybe last year with Christian Vazquez came close. Offensively Luis Garcia hit .305 with 27 homers. So did Harold Castro as my utility/pinch hitter. Oswald Peraza turned out to be a decent DH hitting .298 but only went yard 6 times. Our Soto replacement Julio Rodriguez hit .297 with 15 homers in 54 games for us. Pleased with that. Worryingly Yordan Alvarez only went .238 which was the team's worst average outside of my backup catcher. He did hit 31 homers, though, so I guess not all bad.

Pitching-wise my starters were kinda not the best but not the worst. Sandy Alcantara went 16-10 at a 5.78 ERA. Kyle Wright was the pick of the bunch going 17-8 at 3.98. Framber Valdez went 8-11 at 4.88. Cristian Javier went 3-3 at 6.46 in 10 starts. Ranger Suarez went 6-4 at 5.24 in 17 games before getting injured. Nestor Cortez stepped in for Suarez and went 14-4 at 4.42.

In the bullpen Hader was great with an ERA of 2.78 and 42 saves. Loaisiga was my top reliever at a 2.06 ERA. Indigo Diaz went 2.21. Everyone else was in the 3s.

So yeah to say I'm stoked is an understatement. I think I have everyone on my team signed for next year, too, for another run for the top (although I think I'll be trading Yordan if his average doesn't go up). Hopefully we don't go out of the playoffs in straight sets or anything like that.

EDIT: Beat Pittsburgh 3-2 in the NLDS before losing 4-1 to the Dodgers in the NLCS. Oh well. Bring on next year.

[Mick]

 

 

 

[JasonM]

That's the scariest stopper/closer I have ever seen. The fact he chucks two types of trash at such an insanely high level is absolutely wild. On top of having 75 stamina, so he could basically get pulled out of the bullpen with minimal rest.

[Mick]

In spite of being a stopper/closer, he leads MLB in ERA and strikeouts. Not K/9 (well, probably that too), but pure strikeouts. 

[Mick]

 

 

 

 

Well, ain't that a son of a bitch?

 

[Mick]

Here's the stat line from that knuckleballer stopper/closer:

 

 

He won the Cy Young Award